Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

Speed and range… hmm.

* * * *

Knowing how thin her defensive screen actually was, and always planning ahead, Confederate Admiral Eileen Thorn sent a message to Confederate Rear Admiral Joel Higgins, who was in charge of the supply transports accompanying the fleet, ordering him to begin withdrawing the transports at best speed on a line exactly opposite that of the approaching alien fleet. Slower than her carriers, she wanted to give the transports a head start in case she felt the need to withdraw her carriers along a similar line later on. 

* * * *

Turner had an idea… one-third of his 120 destroyers were of a class configuration that carried their single 5-gigawatt gun turrets facing sternward, including the USS
Hamilton
that currently served as his flagship. Having explained his idea and receiving permission from Admiral Thorn to try out his harebrained scheme, Turner split his command, giving over command of the remaining 80 destroyers screening the carriers to Sextus Rear Admiral Byron Flemming, aboard SRS
Mexia
and took his 40 destroyers with the aft facing guns out to meet the incoming cats. 

The irony of his suddenly feeling better about tangling with 14,000 enemy ships with only 40 destroyers, than he’d felt about facing them using all 120 destroyers just a little earlier, never occurred to him.

* * * *

Returning
Raptors
were recovered by first space available, regardless of carrier of origin. Fortunately, the Alliance, the Confederacy and Sextus all used the same fighters and the same missiles, so equipment compatibility wasn’t an issue when a fighter was recovered on a carrier of a different nationality. Recovering the inbound fighters in this way ensured the quickest turnaround and enabled some to launch again, while others were still being recovered. 

Thorn’s reserve
Demons
arrived within missile range of the alien ships heading towards her carriers and used the same tactics of firing one missile each and then peeling away, as had the assault fighters used earlier to open the battle in front of Stillman’s assault flotilla. Around and around they went… peeling away 100 enemy ships at a time, with each successive launch. As they had earlier, the enemy was firing back, but remained well out of their range of actually hitting anything, except by the dumbest of luck.

* * * *

The Raknii were irritated the humans had even more of those fast-moving fighters in reserve, which were gradually
stripping
away almost two fleets at a time, from well outside the effective range of Rak weapons, with each launch of those incredibly fast-moving robotic weapons called “missiles.” Fortunately they didn’t seem to have an alarming number of them, unless the humans got their initial assault fighters rearmed and relaunched. It was imperative that the Rak not allow anything to prevent them from getting into range of those carriers before that happened.

The OverFleet-Masters spread their fleet out thinly with wide spacing to try to prevent the aliens’ powerful energy weapons from destroying multiple ships at a time, as their bolts penetrated deeply into the Rak formation before dissipating, as had occurred earlier. Even Tzal’s OverFleet had not faced energy weapons of the power and numbers of those the humans displayed on this terrible day. It was unknown whether the human carriers carried the same amount of formidable armor as their huge missile ships in their assault fleet. It was hoped they did not, but if so, they’d just have to get behind them, that’s all. Nothing mystical about it… just a tactical fact.

* * * *

Defiant
led the ships Kalis designated to go back and support Thorn’s carriers, in a high-speed stern-chase of the Rak fleet that already had too great a lead on them. The coalition ships were all faster than the enemy’s, but certainly not fast enough to intercept them before they came within firing range of the carriers. Ben knew the carriers could also outrun the approaching alien ships, and hoped Thorn would withdraw her carriers farther out-system to get them out of harm’s way, but he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t abandon the slower transports that carried the thousands of spare missiles her fighters would need after their on-board stores had been emptied.

The crews on all of the ships in his flotilla were exhausted after so many adrenalin-filled hours of combat… none more so than
Defiant’s.
The aliens were certainly a single-minded bunch, for after surviving that first massive blast of virtually thousands of nearly simultaneous 3-gigawatt energy bolts, as the lead ship,
Defiant
had continued to receive the lion’s share of attention from the oncoming enemy fleet. The old girl had endured literally tens of thousands of those relatively weak hits — by Kalis’ own estimation, more than the rest of the flotilla combined, but they added up, and the stress of that continual pounding had been unnerving. The whole crew had to be in a state of residual shock. 

The human mind is a marvelously elastic organ, capable of adapting to extreme and astonishing circumstances, but there are limits. Ben Stillman felt like his mental shock absorbers had bottomed out repetitively and his mental struts were broken. The human psyche just wasn’t designed to handle hours upon hours of constant terror, convinced the whole time that the very next moment is going to be your last, without something inside your head going
snap, crackle
or
pop
.

Nothing had been said… nothing at all about Ben having discovering Dorothy Fletcher clinging to his arm as they endured that initial, terrible enfilade. After all that followed, Ben now couldn’t be sure whether it had actually happened, or if he’d just hallucinated it, as part of some subconscious
last wish
in the face of impending death. Ben marveled the ship and crew had both held together through the whole thing. 

Kalis had evidently had his doubts, too, as he’d immediately requested a ship status report just as soon as the enemy finally turned away, sure that he was going to hear of a lengthy casualty list. It was with great relief that they learned from sickbay that aside from a few cuts, bruises and broken eardrums, their most serious casualty was one crewmember who experienced a broken shoulder, when an equipment locker latch failed and an improperly stowed piece of spare comm gear had launched itself across the working space at her.

Still, Fletcher actively echoed Ben’s unvoiced fears, as she was sure that
something
had to be terribly wrong with
any
ship that had been subjected to such unimaginable abuse. The engineering officer was currently down in the void spaces making a personal inspection of the main supports and testing the exterior hull for signs of metal fatigue from heat crystallization. Damage control parties were busy patching and strengthening areas of the hull, weakened by multiple hits taking small bites out of the same area, again and again. There had been a few small holes where they’d experienced some minor atmospheric breaches, but they’d found nothing so far that truly threatened the integrity of the ship as a whole — amazing. 

I know you’re here somewhere… thanks for watching out for us, Chris! 

Captain Fletcher ordered the primary bridge crew relieved to rest, before they were needed again… and they would be needed again, long before they fully recovered from that terrible pounding they’d so recently suffered.
Once more into the breach.
Ben could only hope that both the ship and crew could survive more of the same without shattering. 

Like virtually every good ship captain, Dorothy Fletcher thought first of the welfare of her crew, and then failed to take her own advice. She couldn’t order an admiral to stand down and rest, as much as she might like to. Having been a junior officer serving around flag officers himself, Ben knew she wouldn’t rest, as long as he was on still on the bridge. But he also knew if he just retired to his cabin, she’d almost certainly take advantage of his absence to continue overseeing everything personally, and drive herself past exhaustion.

“Well, Captain,” Ben said to her. “The logic of your orders to the bridge crew, to go get some rest before we play patty-cake with the kitties again, is impeccable. Perhaps you and I both should both go below and avail ourselves of that same wisdom.”

“You go ahead, Admiral. There’s just a couple more things that I need to check on first,” Fletcher replied.

Ben leaned in and whispered to her confidentially, “I’ve been a ship captain too, Dorothy. We both know that you’ll continually find more, and then even more, that needs your
personal attention
and end up not resting at all. Consider it an order, Captain. When it hits the fan again, I’ll need you as rested as you’ll need your bridge crew. Commander DeSalle is more than a competent executive officer… let him do his job. Right now, the most important contribution you can make to the safety of your ship is to make sure her captain gets some sack-time, so she’s thinking straight when the bolts begin flying again.”

Dorothy Fletcher locked eyes with Ben with a challenging expression, as if weighing his words for hidden intent. Finding none, the argument that had been on her lips died stillborn. Finally, she nodded and said, “Aye, aye, sir.  I… ugh… appreciate the advice, Admiral. I do tend to try doing everything myself sometimes.”

“All good ship captains do that,” Ben answered. “But it’s when they finally gain the confidence to let go, and trust other people to do their jobs, that they are finally on their way to becoming great ship captains.”

Fletcher again gave Ben a probing look, as if she were searching for deeper layers of meaning to Ben’s words and then decided.

“Mr. DeSalle,” she announced in a loud voice. “I will be in my cabin. You have the conn.”

“I have the conn, aye!” responded her Exec. “Rest well, Captain… we have plenty of duct tape, so we’ll get
Defiant
tacked back together smartly, before it’s time to skin more cats.”

Fletcher gave DeSalle a wry smile and then turned to Stillman and said, “After you, Admiral.”

Ben nodded and then turned, heading out of CIC towards his cabin. He didn’t turn his head to ensure that Fletcher was actually following. He had to live by his own advice and not treat her as a child, who had to be watched constantly to ensure they did what they were supposed to. Still, hearing soft footsteps behind him, slightly out of sync with his own heavier tread, did make him feel better. As he walked, Ben thought of Commander Lancelot DeSalle and remembered wondering early on how the man managed to work so closely beside “Boobs” Fletcher on such a consistent basis, without sporting a continuous tent in his trousers? 

Lance DeSalle had the face and body of a Greek god. Had he been bent along those lines, Ben might have considered Lance almost as pretty as Dorothy Fletcher. It wasn’t until Ben inadvertently overheard two young female officers whispering between themselves, the mystery had finally been solved. Apparently both carried a bit of a torch for the commander and they were commiserating together, bemoaning cruel fate that had strangled their dreams of
happily ever after
with the handsome young officer in its crib… Commander Lancelot DeSalle was gay.

* * * *

Approximately 75,000 Rak transports and auxiliary vessels continued conducting search and rescue operations, while the warfleet dealt with those foolish humans, who had bitten off a great deal more than they could possibly swallow. Few bothered monitoring what was happening during the battle with their notably inferior long-range scanners, as their masters kept their noses strictly pointed towards the task at hand. The eventual outcome was not in doubt. All else were merely details of yet another decisive Raknii victory.

So it was, few noticed the fleeing Rak warships as they flashed by the planet, desperate to get beyond its gravity sink to where it was safe to make the transit to x-space. When hundreds of human missiles suddenly began raining amidst the congested transport formations, confusion and pandemonium reigned. Incredibly powerful energy bolts tore through the Rak transports, crippling dozens of them with each bolt. The transports got under way as soon as they were able, but collisions abounded in the congested space around the planet as panic ensued amongst the crews of the minimally armed vessels. Kalis’ task force, short on missiles and primarily using just their powerful main guns, managed to destroy over 17,000 Rak transports before the majority of them eventually made it to the safety of x-space.

* * * *

The human’s reserve fighters
completed their attack run from outside of Raknii weapons range, and turned back towards their carriers to rearm. The Rak fleet was down to just under 10,000 ships now, with intermittent waves of 50-100 enemy fighters continuing to harass them, as their carriers were able to get returning members of the initial assault fighters rearmed, refueled and relaunched. These human fighters were considerably faster than the ones that Tzal had faced two cycles earlier — a fact that wrecked the Raknii’s tactical planning. 

Scans showed that the human carriers had begun withdrawing deeper out-system on the same bearing as the approaching Rak fleet, matching their speed to prevent them from gaining ground in what was now, effectively a stern-chase the Rak had no chance of winning. Curiously, a group of small enemy ships consisting of only two-thirds of a single fleet were now taunting the Rak. Initially approaching the fleet, they launched fewer than a thousand missiles and then suddenly reversed course. They were now withdrawing, but remaining within firing range of their single aft-facing energy weapons of approximately twice the power and greater range than Rak weapons. Those weapons were continually crippling relatively small numbers of Rak warships, with amazing accuracy. These small tormentors were also matching speed with the Rak ships.